Who Do You Think You Are? website delivers results to multiple stakeholders

While most of the decision makers in Canada's broadcasting industry were debating how to manage the rise of alternative distribution platforms at the annual convention for the Canadian Association of Broadcasters at Ottawa's Westin hotel earlier this week, a multi-platform, multi-stakeholder success story was being celebrated just down Wellington Street at Library and Archives Canada. The Monday-evening event was in recognition of the recently launched CBC show Who Do You Think You Are? and its associated website, which have combined to deliver some very impressive results beyond television ratings. The most quantifiable of these is the 92,000 searches the Library and Archives website received within the first five hours after the first episode of the show, which each week traces the family roots of a different Canadian celebrity, aired on October 11. "If you have a proper extension it will work, this extension worked," says Geoff Whitlock, president and CEO of Lifecapture Interactive Inc., the firm that created the Who Do You Think You Are? website. "The extension was very well thought up...and is actually driving the traffic where it's supposed to, which ultimately is where it all lies. In the end you can spend a million and a half dollars or ten dollars, but if it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, then what's the point?" In the case of the WDYTYA website, Whitlock says there were two clear goals. First, as a Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund-funded initiative, the site has to generate synergy between the online and offline media and help promote the Barna-Alper Productions Inc.-produced show and the CBC. Second, with Library and Archives as a co-financer, the site needs to provide a strategic pathway to the government agency's website where people can delve into the archives to learn about their ancestors. Additionally, the site provides a relevant location for sponsor Ancestry.ca to advertise its own services. The front page of the site itself is a linear example of how online content can compliment a television property. It has four sections: The Show gives background on the series; The Stories offers bonus content and gives an extensive background on all of the celebrities features in the show - including Shaun Majumder, Chantal Kreviazuk, Margot Kidder and General Lewis MacKenzie; Genealogy 101 teaches the basics of tracing your roots; and MyFamilyTree lets users plot their own interactive family tree and search to see if they've already been added to another user's tree. "You need distinct and direct extensions," says Whitlock of designing the online component of a TV property. "And not just an interactive component that tells me about the TV show. It's something that I wouldn't get on the show that I only get online. So you try to extend the storyline, the interest line, you extend the stories and entice visitors to learn more about themselves." And while the show is clearly the basis for the site, Whitlock says the interactive components and the tie-ins with Ancestry.ca and Library and Archives will ensure the site's relevance even when the show is off the air or at the end of each season, even if it is not renewed. He admits that this is not always the case as the success of some sites is directly linked to the success of the shows they support; if the show fails, the site becomes irrelevant. That's just the nature of the business. What will keep the WDYTYA site relevant, he says, is that it's tied to an issue that Canadians are very interested in: genealogy. This, and the sheer volume of searches experienced by Library and Archives, reveals a lot about not only the power of combining television and the Internet, but of the importance of institutions, private and public, taking the risk to leverage these media. Although Canadian tax payers fund Library and Archives Canada, very few of avail themselves of its services. But the success of the WDYTYA campaign proves that previous disinterest likely had more to do with lack of awareness and accessibility than lack of interest. The agency's involvement in this initiative should stand as a lesson to other institutions that feel they have a relevant service to offer Canadians. Of course, there are also lessons to be learned by broadcasters. "I think that there's a pretty clear pathway to the evolution of broadcast online," says Whitlock. "I think it's almost so apparent and so obvious to us in the interactive industry that it's naturally evolving in that direction. Now it's business models and business minds that need to evolve with it."And I think a lot of big brands and television channels are starting to open up to the fact that the internet is more than a website, it's not just throwing something together with a couple of video clips that's going to make something successful."

Who Do You Think You Are? website delivers results to multiple stakeholders

Broadcast | November 9, 2007

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